Comes now the current president to squash Darrell Issa's beef over whether Eric Holder weighs as much as a duck. But lost in said duckhunt are some rather more important documents that got themselves released to the invaluable folks at the National Security Archive. Among other things, the documents reveal in rather startling detail that the last president de-prioritized the CIA's efforts to put Osama bin Laden out of business for "budgetary" reasons — translation: the money went somewhere else — and that the members of that administration have at best been barbering the truth about their own various derelictions of duty ever since. In brief, on this particular historic atrocity, Richard Clarke was right and Condoleezza Rice should not be believed as far as you can throw One World Trade Center.

(Remember the May 16, 2003 press conference when Rice said, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people... would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." This was true only if "anybody" didn't include the entire intelligence community and just about everyone in the outgoing administration. Rice may be the single most overrated person in American public life and, it is made more than abundantly clear from these documents, as a National Security Adviser, she was a terrific piano player.)

Similar to the 9/11 Commission Report, the document collection details repeated CIA warnings of the bin Laden terrorist threat prior to September 11. According to a January 2000 Top Secret briefing to the Director of Central Intelligence, disruption operations against the Millennium plot "bought time... weeks... months... but no more than one year" before al-Qaeda would strike. [2000-01-07] "A UBL attack against U.S. interests could occur at any time or any place. It is unlikely that the CIA will have prior warning about the time or place." [1999-08-03] By September 2001, CIA counterterrorism officials knew a plot was developing but couldn't provide policymakers with details. "As of Late August 2001, there were indications that an individual associated with al-Qa'ida was considering mounting terrorist operations in the United States, [Excised]. No further information is currently available in the timing of possible attacks or on the alleged targets in the United States." [2001-08-24]

Despite mounting warnings about al-Qaeda, the documents released today illustrate how prior to September 11, CIA counterterrorism units were lacking the funds to aggressively pursue bin Laden. "Budget concerns... CT [counterterrorism] supplemental still at NSC-OMB [National Security Council - Office of Management and Budget] level. Need forward movement on supplemental soonest due to expected early recess due to conventions, campaigning and elections. Due to budgetary constraints... CTC/UBL [Counterterrorism Center/Osama bin Laden Unit] will move from offensive to defensive posture." [2000-04-05]

The famous August 7, 2001 PDB is here, but, for the first time, in its proper bureaucratic context, which means it's best understood as an explanation of what Clarke was talking about when he said the system was "blinking red." (Another document, from two months earlier, makes that quite clear, and also that Rice's famous contention that the August PDB was an "historical document" was an ass-covering crock, and that, Congressman Issa, was under oath, too.) How anyone can now look back on how these staggering incompetents used the dead of the 9/11 attacks to pump up their own testosterone and get themselves four more years to further wreck the country and not be filled with unbridled rage is beyond me. And, just to bring things around to the present, Willard Romney has shown that, in the area of foreign policy, he's more than eager to get the band back together again. Just sayin'.